Word: bishops
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...shameful that Bishop Richard Williamson’s historical errors have become the excuse for others to distort the historical record, ignore basic facts of canon law, and libel the Pope as they go. The true story is straightforward. On July 1, 1988, the Vatican published a decree stating that the four new bishops of the Society of St. Pius X had incurred an automatic excommunication for being consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre against the will of Pope John Paul II. In response to their numerous requests for the removal of their excommunication, Pope Benedict XVI issued a formal retraction...
...views expressed by Bishop Richard Williamson are disgusting. Yet they are simply not, under any possible reading of canon law, the point on which communion with the Catholic Church is decided. The Catholic Church states that communion requires belief in Catholic doctrine, association with one’s fellow Catholics, and submission to the Roman Pontiff...
...Bishop Williamson has met these conditions, and so the Pope has restored him to his canonical rights. He may be silenced or prevented from exercising his episcopal office, but his communion with Rome is not in question. A false view on historical fact does not incur excommunication. Will those who demand Williamson’s “re-excommunication” now also enforce the Catholic Church’s policies against advocates of legal abortion...
...reaction of the Catholic Church is already clear. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the SSPX, has silenced Bishop Williamson, forbidden him from making further public statements, and removed him as rector of the SSPX’s South American seminary. The Pope, too, has clearly stated that Holocaust denial is unacceptable. Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone has issued a statement requiring Bishop Williamson to renounce his views before assuming any episcopal jurisdiction...
...Given such dramatic and public steps, it is outrageous to use Bishop Williamson’s views as an occasion to condemn the pope’s more traditional direction for the Catholic Church. The two are not connected. The pope has repeatedly made clear his wish that the Catholic Church’s reforms of the last generation be in continuity with what came before. This intention alone motivated the Pope’s move. It is an intention of great historical significance...